As in my mind

Some weeks ago I was attending a dentist visit with my youngest, and while waiting I was flipping through a magazine. When my eyes fell on the picture above, I knew all of a sudden how L's birthday dress would be. And this idea was there to stay; the egg hàd to come out soon after.

At first I was thinking about the fabric. It had to be cotton and stepped or at least have some embossment. As our fabric shop only sells polyester lining fabrics, I considered to buy and use this coverlet of Ikea. Finally I decided to make the stepped cotton fabric myself, and was able to choose color, thread and topstitch.
A relatively thin fiberfill layer was added between lining and outer fabric. I first cut the pattern pieces, as used before and found in this book, and then topstitched horizontal in the color of the fabric and on 60° with yellow thread.

The circular skirt I turned inside out to avoid a seam at the bottom of the skirt. After finishing the body piece, I measured it's bottom line to be sure about the size of the circle I had to cut out of the skirt. How to make the cap sleeves I found as well on Griet's blog.

For the accent edging I chose yellow and a salmon pink in the color of L's cheeks. As you can see I wanted to avoid a shoulder seam in the yellow part of the edge.

About the topstitching a final note: my head wasn't able to finish this laborious job. I decided to decrease the number of yellow lines of the skirt. And I was happy about that: the handmade look of the fabric is more obvious now and I like the change of embossment, something you might not see at once, but only when you look closely. This kind of perception on different scales is my cup of tea.

Thank you!

L's teacher whispered in our ears that the class could use a strong new basket for wooden blocks. As L and other eldest kids are leaving her class after two years, we are going to give her such a basket, decorated with handmade flowers and butterflies. L and I based our creation on these flowers; we only made them a bit more colorful, in this case a better choice, I think. 

This week the other decorations will be added on the outside, and will it be filled with wood supplies for the hammer corner.

Great woman

Last Friday I visited the very popular exhibition of Hella Jongerius in Boijmans van Beuningen, the main museum in Rotterdam. Ad, a dear friend, knew he had to take me with him. I so loved to be there! Little L too, she had to search for our vase!
Hella is fabulous with designs and colors. I couldn't resist to make these pics and to buy her corresponding book. After all it's my birthday today ;). But when you click on this link you have a very fine and much better overview of her work.

Back home I finally embroidered her Ikea vase.

This is M

For M's eighth anniversary I have been working on this project (yes, it was a kind of project because it took so long...). Next summer she will be ten, so I'm talking about a while ago. We have a digital camera since the birth of L. Selecting about 1500 pictures out of all our digital pics took me several months! Then some more for layouting pages in InDesign. But it was a great job to do! The books measure about 30 to 30 cm and got a hard cover, which I covered with felt. Yesterday evening we browsed through one of the books again instead of reading a book. We love to do this once in a while.
Now it's going to be L's turn. To finish it in a year I better get started soon ;).

Thing

When I saw this of Annekata some time ago, I knew right away I had to give it a try to make Kristel a brooch like this, which I attached on top of a present I made her. Apparently I was in the right mood, for I made a double sided thing (a more and less colored side), which can be used as a brooch or a button or a pendant or an ornament or... Somebody any other idea?
What's inside the wrapping paper I'll tell you later, so to be continued...

Addition 23.12.10: today I discovered that there is even a name for this and these kind of things: a so-called gift topper. When you like to be inspired for making another one yourself, then just go to this link.

Swapping

Kristel of Vlijtig and I know each other for a long time. We are different and at the same time have a lot in common. When she saw this scarf she asked me to make one for her daughter. We agreed on a practical swap of Sinterklaas presents, so we could make them in daytime. And so became swapping a new experience for me.
I sent her this post: a scarf on which I pinned some mini-presents for her two daughters. Hopefully they all like them. Have a look at Kristel's blog which beauties she made for M!

Busy

Okay, I said to myself, you have no time to do a self-made present for your birthday girl next door in these busy days. So I bought a present. But... when I made a supersmall present for Janne (I'll tell you later) I suddenly made another one for Jil.
And thanks to these girls I did my first button covering! See here (and soon after if you are curious) the result.

Old toy

Long time ago I made my eldest this ball. Especially the beams of the sun collected a lot of love!
Now I notice the ball is still choosen to play with. This afternoon I discovered a little hole in the felt and repaired it right away.